** Kent Online Parish Clerk ** - Tunbridge Wells Parish - Records Access Page

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Tunbridge Wells Parish

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A View of the Parish Your Online Parish Clerk for Tunbridge Wells is: VACANT. Tunbridge Wells is, ecclesiastically, in the diocese of Canterbury, in the archdeaconry of Canterbury and in the deanery of South Malling. The church is named for St Charles the Martyr with original parish registers commencing 1745. Tunbridge Wells, a town, six chapelries, and a sub-district, in Tunbridge district, Kent. The town stands on the Tunbridge and Hastings railway, 5 miles south of Tunbridge; consists chiefly of parts of Tunbridge and Speldhurst parishes; includes also part of the Sussex parish of Frant; originated in the discovery of medicinal springs, in the time of James I, by Dudley Lord North; took the name of Tunbridge Wells from the circumstance that persons frequenting its springs could, for a time, find no lodgings nearer than Tunbridge; was visited, in 1630, by Queen Henrietta Maria, attended by a large suite; attracted, during the next 30 years, considerable numbers of illustrious visitors, who all were obliged either to camp on the downs or to lodge at Southborough; began, at the close of the reign of Charles I, to acquire numerous buildings for the accommodation of visitors; was, toward the end of the reign of Charles II, a resort of Queen Catherine of Braganza, and of other distinguished persons; was visited also by Queen Anne; rose to pre-eminent celebrity in connexion with visits by Cibber, Johnson, Garrick, Richardson, and other leaders of the literary world; was visited in 1834 by the Princess Victoria and the Duchess of Kent, and in 1849 by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert; assured, after the commencement of the present century, the proportions of a town; was materially improved in 1847, by the erection of a portico or piazza in front of its chief spring, and by the formation there of a broad and handsome parade; contributes health to its visitors by at once the chalybeate quality of its waters, the purity of its climate, the picturesqueness of its environs, and a wide command of interesting walks; is a seat of petty sessions and county courts, and a polling place; publishes three weekly newspapers, carries on a manufacture of "Tunbridge ware"; includes fine ranges of private dwellings, several extensive parks, and numerous mansions and villas; contains a house in which Lord North resided after his retirement, another in which Richard Cumberland lived more than 20 years, another in which Pope’s Duke of Chandos died; and has a head post office with a savings bank and money order office;a railway station with telegraph, three other banking offices, seven chief hotels, a town hall, a handsome and lofty assembly room, a neat corn exchange, a police station, a literary and scientific institution with two reading rooms and a good library, a mechanics’ institute, six churches, six dissenting chapels, a Roman Catholic chapel, a cemetery, eleven public schools, an infirmary and dispensary, a weekly market on Friday and races in August. Population in 1851, 10, 587; in 1861, 13,807. Houses, 2,493. The chapelries are Chapel of Ease, Trinity, St. James, St. John, Christchurch and St. Mark. The livings are perpetual curacies in the diocese of Canterbury. Value of St. John, £130 with a habitable glebe house; of the others not reported. Patrons of Chapel of Ease and St. John, Trustees; of Trinity, Mrs. Deacon; of St. James, the Incumbent of Trinity; of Christchurch, the Rev. T. W. Franklyn. The Chapel of Ease is ancient. Trinity church was built in 1827, at a cost of £12,000; and is in the early English style. St. James’ also is modern; St. John’s was built in 1858; Christchurch, in 1841; St. Marks in 1866. The sub-district contains Speldhurst, Ashurst and Bidborough parishes, and part of Tunbridge. Population in 1851, 13,709; in 1861, 17,656. Houses 3,285. ¹ ¹John Marius Wilson, comp. The Imperial Gazatteer of England and Wales. (London, England: A. Fullerton & Co., 1870).
Church Registers	Census	Parish Records	Wills & Court Records
Monumental Inscriptions Christenings 1558-1640 Christenings 1641-1700 Christenings 1701-1775 Christenings 1776-1900 Marriages 1558-1640 Marriages 1641-1700 Marriages 1641-1700 Marriages 1776-1900 Burials 1558-1640 Burials 1641-1700 Burials 1641-1700 Burials 1776-1900 IGI batch #s, Boyds, Pallots, BVRI, NBI Published Records	1801-1831 1841 1851 1861 1871 1881 1891 1901	Settlement Certificates Removal Orders Bastardy Examinations Parish-assisted Immigrants Churchwarden's Accounts Overseer's Accounts Surveyor's Accounts Workhouse Records Pew Rents Donors' Rolls Vestry Minutes Bishops' Visitations Parish Magazines Parish Histories	AD index 1448-1857 CC index 1448-1857 PCC 1338-1858 PPR 1858-1925 Depositions Quarter Sessions Militia Lists Muster Rolls Description Books Tithe Apportionment c1830s Transportations Protestation Rolls c1641-1643 Oaths of Allegiance c1720s
Tax Lists	Directories	Land Records & Maps	Other
Poll Tax Hearth Tax Window Tax Hair Powder Tax Land Tax Assessments 1780-1831 Land Tax Assessments 1799-1805	Pigot's Directory of Kent, 1824 Illustrated Guide to the London and Dover Railway, 1846 History, Gazetteer & Directory of Kent, Vol. II, 1847 Post Office Directory of Essex, Herts, Kent ... , 1855. [Part 1: Counties & Localities] Post Office Directory of Essex, Herts, Kent ... , 1855. [Part 2: Court & Trade Directories] Melville & Co.'s Directory of Kent, 1858 Kelly's Directory of Kent, 1882 Kelly's Directory of Kent, Surrey & Sussex, 1891. [Part 1. Kent: County & Localities] Kelly's Directory of Kent, Surrey & Sussex, 1891. [Part 2. Kent: Court & Trade Directories] Kelly's Directory of Kent, 1903. [Part 1: County & Localities] Kelly's Directory of Kent, 1903. [Part 2: Private Resident & Trade Directories] Kelly's Directory of Kent, 1913. [Part 1: County & Localities] Kelly's Directory of Kent, 1913. [Part 2: Private Resident & Trade Directories]	Parish Map Deeds, Mortgages, etc. Rated Property Returns Returns of owners of land, 1873 Manor Court Baron Manor Tenancy Rolls Manors, Castles & Holdings of Significance	War Memorials Francis Frith photographic collection Apprenticeships Immigration School Records Notable Events Nefarious Activities Newspapers Visitation, 1612



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